THE RASPUTIN AFFAIR

Ensemble Theatre, April 7. Until April 30

In 2014, Kate Mulvany, author of this comedy, was acting in Bell Shakespeare's production of Moliere's Tartuffe. It was a good show and she was great in it, playing the feisty, motor-mouthed maid Dorine.

Three years on, Mulvany delivers The Rasputin Affair, a play with marked similarities in set-up and tone.

In Tartuffe, the central figure is a self-proclaimed holy man who has wormed his way into the bosom of a wealthy family. In The Rasputin Affair, the title character is the peasant turned mystic healer who made himself indispensable to the Russian royal family.

Both men, despite professing piety, demonstrate a taste for the sensual. Both have to be gotten rid of.

In Moliere's play, Tartuffe is eventually tricked into revealing his hand. Mulvany's Rasputin is too cunning a character for that, however. He's going to have to be carried out of the palace feet first.

Drawing on the historical record, Mulvany brings together four unlikely assassins: Felix (Tom Budge), nobleman and nervous wreck; Dimitri (Hamish Michael), a financially ruined Grand Duke with a claim to the throne; Vlad (John Gaden), a politician determined to record the details of the murder for posterity, and Minya (Zindzi Okenyo), Felix's servant.

Together they have baked a cyanide-laced pink-iced cupcake. All they have to do is get Rasputin (Sean O'Shea, who played Orgon in that Bell Tartuffe, coincidentally) to eat it.

All the ingredients for a murderously black farce appear to be in place then. But The Rasputin Affair struggles to find its comic feet. Scenes become unwieldy as characters unpack their individual issues. The role and purpose of Gaden's Vlad is foggy. Under John Sheedy's direction, the play's physical comedy elements are incoherent and don't feel like they rise organically from the situation.

Alicia Clements' set looks great – a portrait gallery wall tricked out with sliding panels and hidden doors – but the farce elements it permits lack the required sharpness.

The performances are good but vary in style. O'Shea is commanding as Rasputin. Gaden bumbles expertly. Michael demonstrates some fine shading as the oily Dimitri. Okenyo capably negotiates some odd character twists. Budge makes some big choices but his shrillness makes Felix hard to watch let alone understand.

Once Rasputin is dead (and castrated), Mulvany seems at a loss as to what to do next. Looping the script back to its starting point (a prophetic note from Rasputin) is serviceable as endings go but short of inspired.